Freightcar America, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Freight Car America second quarter fiscal 2022 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Stephen Poe, Investor Relations for Freight Car America. Please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome. Joining me today are Jim Meyer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Reardon, Chief Financial Officer, and Matt Ton, Chief Commercial Officer. I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during this conference call relating to the company's expected future performance, future business prospects, or future events or plans may include forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Participants are directed to Freight Car America's Form 10-K for a description of certain business risks some of which may be outside of the control of the company that may cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any duty to provide updates to our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. During today's call, there will also be a discussion of some items that do not conform to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the earnings release issued yesterday afternoon. Our earnings release for the second quarter of 2022 is posted on the company's website at FreightCarAmerica.com, along with our 10-Q, which was filed yesterday after market close. With that, let me now turn the call over to Jim for a few opening remarks. Jim? Thank you, Stephen.

Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. As you saw in yesterday's earnings release, FreightCar America continued to build momentum in the second quarter by delivering another quarter of top-line growth, double-digit gross margins, and positive adjusted EBITDA. For the first six months of the year, our revenues are up 115% year-over-year, and with the completion of the second quarter, we are now adjusted EBITDA positive for the trailing 12 months. We produced and delivered 468 railcars in the second quarter, the exact number that was planned. As you know, we are still operating on just two production lines, and as we informed you last quarter, both lines went through major product changeovers during the period. Even with the extended downtime associated with the changeovers and the resulting curtailment and deliveries in the quarter, the team delivered an adjusted EBITDA of $2.3 million. Our revenue for the second quarter was up 52% year over year. And along with the strong top line growth, we achieved a gross margin of 11.6% and gross profit of $6.6 million. And again, this was on less than 500 rail cars. We are very proud of the team's work and the results, which continue to demonstrate that our manufacturing footprint in northern Mexico is built for efficiency and profitability. On the commercial front, our sales team remained focused on business that is good for the company and ensured that the business we accepted offered a fair and appropriate opportunity to earn a profit. During the quarter, and as Matt will discuss in more detail, we were awarded 1,045 new orders, and we did this while turning down a comparable number of orders. As we run our company with a high degree of discipline, we are simultaneously focused on scaling the business, driving profitable growth, and achieving our commitment to become a world-class manufacturing company. Along these lines, our expansion projects continue to progress. The larger scaled wheel and axle shop and 162,000 square foot fabrication shop are beginning to come online at this time. Additionally, we still expect to complete the new assembly building with additional production lines within the next six months. When complete, and as currently envisioned, We will have approximately 1 million square feet under roof on our 125-acre campus, located just 160 miles from the cities of Laredo and Eagle Pass, Texas. While our financial results are improving significantly, we continue to navigate substantive supply chain and inflationary headwinds that persist and put downward pressure on both us and the industry. To date, the team has done an excellent job in mitigating the associated effects, but these headwinds are felt and expected to challenge us through at least the end of this year. Even so, we believe we are better positioned than at any point in our recent history to address headwinds of all types. We also continue to be impressed by the production volume that our new footprint is able to produce, which is close to double what we originally anticipated. For this reason, we can provide further improvement to our outlook. For the full year 2022, we are now forecasting revenue to be between $340 million and $360 million, up approximately 72% year-over-year at the midpoint of the range, and up from our previously stated range of $320 million to $340 million. We are also now projecting deliveries to be between 3,000 and 3,200 rail cars, an increase of approximately 79% year-over-year at the midpoint of the range, and up from our previously stated delivery guidance of between 2,800 and 3,000 rail cars. In summary, the second quarter of 2022 serves as an additional proof point of the strength and efficiency of our manufacturing footprint in Costanos. We expect to deliver upwards of 2,000 rail cars in the second half of the year, while we continue to build out the new footprint with a focus on meeting our future anticipated demand levels and achieving world-class manufacturing excellence. With that, I would like to now turn the call over to Matt for a few commercial comments related to the second quarter and moving forward. Matt?